Consider this project an eclectic mixtape, but rather than music, it’s focused around imagery. What started off as drawing commonalities between photos that have always inspired me began my project to juxtapose images that are not always necessarily similar in subjects, but have links in their coloring, shapes, and moods evoked. For me, a bulk of my inspirations and visions trace back to fashion; be it a SoundCloud discovery as a potential Balenciaga soundtrack, or a DMV line-up as an imagined setting for a shot by Mario Sorrenti for a Vogue Nippon editorial. I wanted the worlds of my inspirations, be it art, fashion or music to become more interconnected than ever and to create possible mood-boards that my treasured visionaries may have used when creating the very works that are now an integral core of my aesthetic vision.

1) “All That Glitters” Barbie (2002) x Beyoncé in “Baby Boy” (2003)

Introduced in 2002 by Barbie Collector, “All That Glitters” Barbie was marketed as a tribute to princesses of pop, but she heavily referenced one princess (now a queen) of pop in particular. At the time Beyoncé was prepping to release her first solo album that contained the single “Baby Boy”. The music video showcased Beyoncé in several head to toe bronze/gold looks that accentuated her warm blond toned hair, a likelihood to the miniature tribute. The doll’s mesh halter top and golden hoops combo is easily a look Beyoncé could have sported in the video and vice versa.

2) Issey Miyake (1992) x Rixdorf Schieber by Matt Lambert (2012)

Issey Miyake’s spring/summer 1992 collection was comprised of wearable structures, in other words, fabrics were manipulated and draped in a way to create silhouettes out of mutton cloth. The magic of the material was that it created tonal variations of the actual base tone, allowing for effects similar to that of a gradient sunset gradually changing in hues as exemplified in Matt Lambert’s photograph of Rixdorf Schieber (left).

At Jeremy Scott’s spring/summer 2001 show, Devon Aoki wore a teal pastel sea-shell bathing suit, with heavy pageant make-up and side-swept mermaid hair, a look that could easily pass as an in the flesh example of Beijing-based artist Feng Zhengjie’s work, which incorporates highly saturated oil paints. His use of colors were initially deemed superficial and shallow by wider Chinese culture and created a clash with the Chinese market. The creator vs. consumer clash narrative is one that Jeremy Scott knows all too well, as he was accused of “producing outlandish clothing that no one would wear” at the beginning of his career.

Two Japanese visionaries, Mariko Mori and Jun Takahashi for Undercover have worked tirelessly at reclaiming the usage of Japanese influences for Japanese artists. Mariko is a contemporary video and photographic artist who for her 1994 project “Play with Me” (left) dressed herself as a cyborg “with light blue hair in long ponytails, metallic blue plastic in a hard-shell articulation of erotic body parts, silver plastic gloves, and a dress.” On the same avant-garde continuum, Jun aided in contributing to the new wave of Japanese fashion designers and alongside the likes of Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake have carved themselves a spot in the Paris slots.

Each year, Comme des Garçons collaborates with an artist who is commissioned to create artwork for their customer mailing lists. In 2013, they asked manga artist Katsuhiro Otomo to incorporate his characters from his acclaimed manga, “AKIRA” in his volumes of work for CDG, with one volume of which featured a character by the name of “Tetsuo”(left). Tetsuo’s kelly green coloring is the same as that of a Véronique Branquinho jersey fabric turtleneck.